Wanna take your advertising to one of the world’s biggest streaming services? You do? Oh, luck’s on your side, as Netflix Basic with Ads is now available.

You can now reach consumers in 12 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, the UK and the US), with more markets to follow in due course.

Netflix

“A plan for every fan: Our current plans and members will not be impacted. Basic with Ads complements our existing ad-free Basic, Standard and Premium plans.”

What is Netflix Basic with Ads?

To try and retain business in the face of rising costs of living across the globe, Netflix has created this new subscription tier and priced it at $6.99 AUD per month. The Basic plan is $10.99 AUD, Standard is $16.99 AUD and Premium $22.99 AUD.

On the Basic with Ads plan, users can only watch on one device at a time, some movies and shows are unavailable, and the maximum resolution possible is 720p. Downloads are also disabled.

Not all TV shows or movies are available on the Basic with Ads plan. Four of the top 10 movies in the US require an upgrade to Basic to view, as do other films such as The Imitation Game and Skyfall.

Certain smash shows such as Arrested Development and The Good Place are also locked out to Basic with Ads viewers.

How do Netflix Ads play out for businesses?

Advertisers can pay to have 15-second or 30-second adverts shown to Basic with Ads users. However, just what ad placements marketers are buying isn’t clear. At launch, ads are shown at inconsistent times, or none at all.

We know that ads will be shown before and during shows and films, but exactly when isn’t clear. For example, Jay Peters from TheVerge.com found out that Community, Seinfeld and Grey’s Anatomy had no ads, along with Spider-Man. Crazy, Stupid, Love had a front ad and one midroll ad, while three Netflix original movies had ads at the beginning but none in the middle.

If you’re an advertiser, you’re going to want to get as many eyeballs on your product as possible – and that means you’ll want your advert shown on the most popular shows. Whether that happens is anyone’s guess.

Ads are pausable, but they’re not skippable.

Netflix Ads targeting leaves a bit to be desired 

Netflix says that it’ll offer broad targeting capabilities by country and genre, which should help advertisers target the right audience and make sure they’re relevant to consumers.

Netflix

“Advertisers will also be able to prevent their ads from appearing on content that might be inconsistent with their brand (e.g. sex, nudity or graphic violence).”

Netflix will use Digital Ad Ratings in the U.S, which will be reported through Nielsen ONE Ads. Viewability and traffic validity are being handled via partnerships with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science and will start in Q1 of 2023.

Surprisingly, Netflix partnered with Microsoft to deliver the ads, which will run for four to five minutes per hour. It is supported by Xandr’s end-to-end platform.

Microsoft

“We are working with top advertisers to plan for compelling, relevant, world-class content that is as entertaining as the programming itself – with no shortage of interest.”

Ads won’t come cheap though

According to the Guardian, Netflix has sold out of its ad inventory already. Brands such as Nyx and Budweiser owners Anheuser-Busch InBev are on board.

Ad slots will set advertisers back by around $90 AUD for 1,000 viewers reached, which is close to the cost of a 30-second ad break on traditional TV stations. Marketers are also being pressed to make quarterly guarantees of spend.

Netflix doesn’t currently offer the ability to reach the coveted 16-34 age group, so marketers putting their faith in the platform will have to be content with a more scattergun approach.

However, the streaming service is trying to build this into its targeting machine for 2023 – as per the Guardian.